The life cycles of counterfactual mood in early Indo-European languages

Abstract In this article, I argue that the counterfactual function of the optative was inherited from Proto-Indo-European and that its past-referring counterfactual function (e.g. in Vedic Sanskrit, Archaic Greek, and Gothic) seems to be the oldest preserved function of the optative in early Indo-European languages. In these and in languages where the optative underwent mood syncretism with other moods such as the subjunctive (e.g. Latin or Old English), the inherited counterfactual function extended its temporal reference to the non-past, following the life cycle of counterfactual markers. Over time, this mood, syncretized or not, lost its counterfactual function in most Indo-European descendants and was replaced by different mood formations at various speeds (typically by a past indicative or a past-like ‘conditional’ mood). First, I provide a functional history of the optative in Ancient Greek, from (1) past counterfactual to (2a) non-past counterfactual, and from there into (3a) non-past ‘hypothetical’ usage and from (1) past counterfactual into (2b) past habitual and (3b) past generic. Next, I internally reconstruct the developmental paths of the optative and its counterfactual replacements across Indo-European languages, concluding with a tentative diachronic typology of counterfactual mood strategies.